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Authors: Madison Smartt Bell
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falls spattered us with cool drops where we stood on the far side.
Laurel smiled, and touched the back of my hand with one finger. In two smooth motions she came out of her clothes, then threw herself down into the pool.
Over the roar of the falls, I couldn’t even hear the splash. I hesitated before I followed, but Laurel seemed to know what she was doing, and now I could see the heads of another pair of swimmers moving in the water, near to hers.
I went down as deep as the space of empty air through which I’d fallen, but I never touched the bottom. At first it was so cold it made my back teeth hurt. There was a calm center down in the sapphire blue, like the opium core of the hash we had smoked. I opened my eyes underneath the water, and saw Laurel’s bare legs swiveling like seaweed in the lens of distorted light at the surface. I kicked up and broke into the air beside her, gasping and laughing; Laurel was too.
I trod water, watching her swim. She did all her strokes correctly, like she’d learned at summer camp. I couldn’t have matched her strength as a swimmer, but I didn’t mind; it was pretty to see. After a little while she backstroked to the lowest fall and let the water shower over her upturned face. I paddled over to her, and rested on a shallow rock. Laurel came out of the water like a mermaid and sat on a wet stone with her legs folded under her. Her right breast lifted with the movement of her arm as she roped her hair back over one shoulder.
The other pair of swimmers had emerged on the other side of the pool from us. Though the rocks were surely slippery, they climbed surefooted and gracefully upright, until they reached a ledge below the middle fall. They turned in our direction then, although they didn’t seem to know that we were there.
“Wow.” Laurel touched a finger to her lower lip. “I think that’s O——.”
I recognized him then myself, from all the album covers and posters. O—— came around the ranch sometimes, I’d heard, but this was the first time I had seen him here. Supposedly D—— had lived for a while in O——’s house in Malibu, with some earlier configuration of the People, but that was before Laurel’s time, or mine.
For me, O—— got his beauty from his music, but I could see Laurel was struck by his looks. And I suppose he was a handsome man, or boy, with the golden skin he got (some claimed) from a black father, the dark ringlets of his hair flattened down around his shoulders by the wet. But I was more impressed with Eerie on that morning; I don’t think I have ever seen so beautiful a mortal body.
They were as unaware of us as if we’d been a couple of fish in the pool, but we did watch them, as they moved under the waterfall together. His gold hand slipped over her ivory hip to the small of her back, and they seemed to caress each other with skeins of the falling water. All their movements were so delicate, and marvelously slow. It felt as if their love rained down on me and Laurel, and watered all the places where we had been dry.
A fine gray dust blew over the desert. It coated every window, seeped in through every crack. All day the machines ate into the stone of the mountain. The incessant complaint of their alarms as they reversed and then returned to the attack. Between the clatter and the monotone came the whisper of pumps, sucking the aquifers dry. The endless racket of mortal engines, striving to build Babylon.
Gray dust caked in the back of my throat. I longed for my old voices, but heard nothing.
Raze it. Raze it. For the gods’ sake, burn it down.
I went to Lake Mead, to look for water. The torpid surface stretched away, farther than the eye could see. There was the rush of the flumes in the sky-high dam, the chatter of tourists, and the cries of gulls circling overhead, a thousand miles away from the sea, dipping and diving to snatch at our leavings.
A casino for scavengers. The gulls flew down with the devotion of marks
Laurel smiled, and touched the back of my hand with one finger. In two smooth motions she came out of her clothes, then threw herself down into the pool.
Over the roar of the falls, I couldn’t even hear the splash. I hesitated before I followed, but Laurel seemed to know what she was doing, and now I could see the heads of another pair of swimmers moving in the water, near to hers.
I went down as deep as the space of empty air through which I’d fallen, but I never touched the bottom. At first it was so cold it made my back teeth hurt. There was a calm center down in the sapphire blue, like the opium core of the hash we had smoked. I opened my eyes underneath the water, and saw Laurel’s bare legs swiveling like seaweed in the lens of distorted light at the surface. I kicked up and broke into the air beside her, gasping and laughing; Laurel was too.
I trod water, watching her swim. She did all her strokes correctly, like she’d learned at summer camp. I couldn’t have matched her strength as a swimmer, but I didn’t mind; it was pretty to see. After a little while she backstroked to the lowest fall and let the water shower over her upturned face. I paddled over to her, and rested on a shallow rock. Laurel came out of the water like a mermaid and sat on a wet stone with her legs folded under her. Her right breast lifted with the movement of her arm as she roped her hair back over one shoulder.
The other pair of swimmers had emerged on the other side of the pool from us. Though the rocks were surely slippery, they climbed surefooted and gracefully upright, until they reached a ledge below the middle fall. They turned in our direction then, although they didn’t seem to know that we were there.
“Wow.” Laurel touched a finger to her lower lip. “I think that’s O——.”
I recognized him then myself, from all the album covers and posters. O—— came around the ranch sometimes, I’d heard, but this was the first time I had seen him here. Supposedly D—— had lived for a while in O——’s house in Malibu, with some earlier configuration of the People, but that was before Laurel’s time, or mine.
For me, O—— got his beauty from his music, but I could see Laurel was struck by his looks. And I suppose he was a handsome man, or boy, with the golden skin he got (some claimed) from a black father, the dark ringlets of his hair flattened down around his shoulders by the wet. But I was more impressed with Eerie on that morning; I don’t think I have ever seen so beautiful a mortal body.
They were as unaware of us as if we’d been a couple of fish in the pool, but we did watch them, as they moved under the waterfall together. His gold hand slipped over her ivory hip to the small of her back, and they seemed to caress each other with skeins of the falling water. All their movements were so delicate, and marvelously slow. It felt as if their love rained down on me and Laurel, and watered all the places where we had been dry.
A fine gray dust blew over the desert. It coated every window, seeped in through every crack. All day the machines ate into the stone of the mountain. The incessant complaint of their alarms as they reversed and then returned to the attack. Between the clatter and the monotone came the whisper of pumps, sucking the aquifers dry. The endless racket of mortal engines, striving to build Babylon.
Gray dust caked in the back of my throat. I longed for my old voices, but heard nothing.
Raze it. Raze it. For the gods’ sake, burn it down.
I went to Lake Mead, to look for water. The torpid surface stretched away, farther than the eye could see. There was the rush of the flumes in the sky-high dam, the chatter of tourists, and the cries of gulls circling overhead, a thousand miles away from the sea, dipping and diving to snatch at our leavings.
A casino for scavengers. The gulls flew down with the devotion of marks
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